This Exercise, However…

MR. MORRELL: Let me — you’ve already had your chance; going to this gentleman over here.

Q (Name inaudible) — with China Press. I have two questions regarding U.S.-China and Japan relations.

MR. MORRELL: Okay.

Q The first one, it was reported by the Japanese Sankei Shimbun newspaper that the United States and Japan are slated to hold a joint military exercise in November as a mock operation to retake Diaoyutai Islands of China occupies them.

MR. MORRELL: Yeah.

Q Can you — could you confirm this report? If it’s true, what would be the purpose of this operation?

[…]

MR. MORRELL: The first question was about this exercise — the U.S.-Japanese military exercise — and I think you tried to connect it to the island dispute. Absolutely no connection. It’s a long-planned exercise not relating to any current events. This is merely about keeping up our operational — our ability to operate well together. And long-planned, not related to the island dispute at all.

Q So you mean the newspaper connect the two things together, right?

MR. MORRELL: I’m sorry?

Q The newspaper connect the exercise with the — (inaudible).

MR. MORRELL: They did that? Newspapers. I can’t believe that. (Chuckles.)
Yes, oftentimes things that are unrelated are connected in news stories. And that’s part of why I have a job, to push back on such things.

US Department of Defense news transcript, October 5, 2010

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Huanqiu reporter Dong Wei reports that, according to Japan’s newsagency Kyodo of October 6, American department of defense spokesman Morell said on October 5 that the governments of Japan and the US plan an “island defense exercise” between the US forces and Japan’s self-defense forces. The American side said that the exercise was “not related” to the Sino-Japanese collision incident.

However, as sources on Japanese-US relations revealed, the military exercise of the two countries is based on the hypothesis that Japanese islands were “suffering an armed attack”. It is reported that Japan’s self-defense forces will dispatch aircraft, including F-15 fighter jets and cargo aircrafts to take part in this exercise, and that 250 paratroopers will be transferred from nearby Okinawa military base. The US Seventh Fleet will also join the exercise. Some of the exercise project will be public. Morrell said: “The exercise is being planned, and is not related to this incident” (莫雷尔称：“演习早就在计划之中，与‘此次发生的事件’无关). Kyodo’s report says that because of the hard-line attitude China displayed on the question of sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands, the Japanese-US exercises could have “the effect of highlightening Japanese-US cooperation”.

Huanqiu Shibao, October 6, 2010

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The first two paragraphs of Kyodo’s report – the one Huanqiu Shibao reporter Dong Wei [update/correction: Zhong Wei (仲伟)] apparently refers to -, have about the same wording as Dong’s own, but without the word “However” at the beginning of the second paragraph.

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Related

“ROC sovereignty claim is unquestionable”, Focus Taiwan, October 3, 2010
“Ring of Fire”, Taipei Times, September 15, 2010